Auto Erotic Assimilation
|code = 203}} "Auto Erotic Assimilation" is the third episode of the second season of Rick and Morty. It is the fourteenth episode of the series overall. It premiered on August 9, 2015. It was written by Ryan Ridley and directed by Bryan Newton. Synopsis Rick, Morty, and Summer stumble on a hive mind named Unity that Rick used to date. Summer objects to Unity's control over an alien planet's population. Plot While travelling through space and jamming to some music, Rick, Morty, and Summer come across a distress signal from an alien starship. Rick intercepts and boards the starship with the intention of looting it, but instead he comes across the ship's surviving crew members, who explain their planet has been taken over by an assimilating hive-mind, before the aforementioned hive mind attacks and assimilates the rest of the crew. To the trio's shock, the hive mind apparently knows Rick, who awkwardly admits that he and the hive mind, named Unity, used to "date." Back on the planet Unity overtook, Unity explains how it was able to take over the entire population, unifying the world and improving the quality of the inhabitants' life, at the cost of their free will and individuality. Despite being treated well by Unity, Summer protests the loss of the original population's individuality, but, as Unity controls every mind on the planet, her attempts to "free" the inhabitants do not go very far. Elsewhere on the planet, Unity and Rick waste no time rekindling their relationship rather extravagantly. Not long after, a neighboring hive mind called Beta-Seven arrives on a routine trading mission. Beta-Seven is ostensibly attempting to pursue a closer relationship with Unity, but its awkward efforts only cause Rick to make fun of it. As it leaves, Rick notices the materials Beta Seven left behind can be mixed into various drugs to help spice up his and Unity's partying and kinky sex. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Jerry enters the garage looking for the weed-whacker because the weeds in the cracks made from the house being transported to another dimension have started to become overgrown. He is confronted by Beth, who chastises him for being in the garage when Rick is not present. The two argue, but are interrupted by a gurgling sound from under what they discover to be a hatch in the floor. Back on Unity's planet, Morty and Summer notice that Unity's control on the population appears to be slipping, and the inhabitants begin to regain their minds. However, the newly freed people almost immediately begin a race war among themselves. Morty and Summer are almost caught in the crossfire before Unity manages to rescue them. While Unity is transporting them to Rick, they notice Unity's inebriated state and realize that the drug-and-alcohol laden parties are hurting Unity's ability to control the population. Back at home, Beth and Jerry descend into the underground lair and discover Blim Blam, a Korblockian that eats babies, imprisoned by Rick in order to cure his "Space AIDS". They soon begin bickering, to the point where the creature, fed up with the arguing, breaks free of his restraints, steals a translation device from the lab, and angrily explains the reason for his imprisonment and berates them both about how awful their marriage is, and then leaving, promising never to return to Earth. On Unity's planet, Morty and Summer try to get Rick to go home with them, but Rick dismisses them, sending them home via portal before continuing to party with Unity. At this point, Summer and Morty warn Unity and Rick about the terrible influence they have on each other and tell Unity to, "take care of itself". Later, when Rick leaves Unity to use the restroom, all the planet's inhabitants are gone, leaving behind farewell notes for Rick explaining that, while Unity enjoyed its time with him, they cannot be together; they are too alike in the sense that both of them turn others into mirror images of themselves, though in Rick's case, he does so through bad influence rather than assimilation. Unity mentions that Rick is even better at fulfilling what itself was destined to do through coming into existence as a hive-mind; that Rick is able to change others yet is not able to be reformed himself, which leads to his self-destructive, reckless nature eventually bringing those around him down with him and invariably sentences them to suffer because of his own emotional barriers and methods of resisting the inevitability of meaninglessness and his own pain. It ends the letter by affirming that it loves him and is upset it cannot be with him. Depressed and alone, Rick returns home, where he is confronted by Beth over the basement lair and the escaped alien. To Beth's (and the whole family's) shock, Rick simply concedes and retreats to the garage. Here, he dejectedly assembles the parts of a death ray and unfreezes a deformed, distressed creature (possibly a Cronenberg) he had been storing. On the verge of tears, he lovingly comforts the screaming, suffering creature before vaporising it with the death ray. He then prepares to do this to himself, but passes out unconscious before the machine can fully prepare the ray, causing him to barely miss having committed suicide. He then laid passed out at his workstation in the garage for the rest of the day and night. The episode ends zooming out to show Rick passed out at his desk the next morning and Jerry happily whacking the weeds in the driveway. After the credits, Rick and Morty are at Beta-Seven's mothership, where Unity is staying. Rick demands to see Unity. Beta-Seven informs Rick he is considered a "hostile entity" and threatens to attack the two unless they leave, which Rick reluctantly does at Morty's urging. Characters *Rick Sanchez *Morty Smith *Summer Smith *Unity *Jerry Smith *Beth Smith *Blim Blam *Beta-Seven Deaths * Several unnamed Unity's planet Citizens * Creature Songs *Love Connection Experience *Do You Feel It? by Chaos Chaos *L'Equipe du Son - Snowballing (available on Soundcloud) Trivia *The title of this episode is a pun on autoerotic asphyxiation. *This is the first and so far only episode to focus on Rick's past and love life. *This episode reveals that Rick is pansexual. *Rick reveals during the episode that he prefers redheads. This could suggest that Beth's mother had red hair and that Beth herself carries the gene for this particular recessive trait. It would also explain Summer's hair color. *This is the first time Rick mentions his father, wanting a stadium of men that looked remotely like him. *The outro song is "Do You Feel It?" by Chaos Chaos. *In Rick's underground laboratory, there is a capsule containing what seems to be the fetus of Cthulhu. *The television show Unity creates for Rick is a reference to Dan Harmon's sitcom Community. * During the race war, there's a glimpse of a Unity woman resembling the character Joy from the film Inside Out (Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen, 2015). *While exploring the stranded alien starship, Rick tells Morty and Summer that if they find a room full of eggs to give one a shake, claiming that the facehuggers are worth more than the ship. A reference to Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien. *The people who belong to Unity all blink at the same time. *On the news, there was a crudely drawn picture of Morty and Summer asking "Dude, Where's My Grandpa?" This is a reference to the movie Dude, Where's My Car? *The scene in the spaceship where Rick points out that two members of the alien species are calm, who in return point at the other survivors and screech, resembles the end of the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. *While searching for his weed wacker, Jerry pulls a frozen creature out of a cupboard. This same creature is destroyed at the end of the episode while Rick is constructing the laser that almost killed him. *The main host that Unity uses around Rick looks more than a little bit like Sarah Palin. Transcript View a full transcript of the episode here. Site navigation it:Episodio 14 Category:Episodes Category:Season 2 episodes Category:Rick Episodes Category:Jerry Episodes Category:Beth Episodes